I'm sitting here sipping my coffee and listening to the radio saying how Chicago is the most caffeinated city in the United States according to some survey or another that recently came out. Considering my town currently has no coffee house (amazingly, not even a Starbucks -- gasp!), in my little neck of the greater Chicagoland woods I don't see it. Three coffee shops here in my city started, three failed. Only one of which I was actually sad to see go under (that one is now a custom tee-shirt shop that seems to be doing quite well).

Anyway, I got a letter from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles yesterday. They're doing some sort of push to prevent identity theft, and needed me to confirm my social security number with them. I logged on to their website and filled out the little form to take care of that, and tell them I'm me basically.

I shouldn't have done it, but I spent some money yesterday and bought myself 3 books. A Terry Pratchett one, and two books on poker. I bought them through amazon.com, and clicked on the page that lists the stuff amazon recommends for me based on my activities with them: a lot of science fiction and fantasy books that tempted me; books on ... um, adult interests I have; books on writing; and books on currency trading.

I was surprised that despite having bought 2 other poker books from Amazon, they didn't get into my recommendations. Well, I fixed that. I added several of the poker books I want but am not buying just now to my amazon wish list. I then checked the recommendation page again. Suddenly it was mostly poker books. It went from one extreme to the other. ::::sigh:::: Oh, well.

I was a bit surprised the other day when I logged on to play some poker. I was invited to join a satellite tournament for entry into the European poker tour at the Prague event. Just because, on one side of my family, I do have ancestors that once lived in that area (and prob. still have distant, long-lost relatives in the Czech Republic), I wouldn't mind eventually going to Prague, but I can't really do much traveling with my current situation.

Ah, as long as I'm on the topic of poker, I signed up for a bonus they were offering. If I can earn 500 player points by the start of May, I'll get $50 from pokerstars. I think it's doable, but it will also mean I'm going back to playing online daily. I even worked out the math for those points with a two week buffer for *when* I start falling behind schedule (if I keep the schedule I'll have the 500 points mid April, but I know I'll be having a few days away from poker when I visit H for her upcoming birthday, and maybe around the year end holidays too that will eat into that buffer.

Hmm, it seemed like there was something else I wanted to mention, but I'm drawing a blank. Ah, I'll just end this with a couple of "... of the day" items. Later, y'all.

Overheard conversation quote of the day:"Was it a hot day when you were riding on your U.F.O?"

I heard the quote on the radio. They were interviewing Vicky Emerson, and apparently in her younger days she was the queen of a U.F.O festival in her hometown which declared itself the UFO capital of the world.